On December 24, 1987, the Soviet government adopted a decree “On Restricting the Registration of Citizens in Certain Settlements of the Crimean Region and Krasnodar Territory.”

According to this resolution, in order to protect public order, the possibility of registering citizens was restricted in the cities of Alushta, Yevpatoria, Kerch, Sevastopol, Simferopol, Feodosia, Yalta, as well as in the settlements of Bakhchisaray, Leninsky, Razdolnensky, Saksky, Simferopol, Sudak, and Chornomorsk regions. This was done to control the return of Crimean Tatars deported in 1944. In the context of “perestroika,” the Soviet authorities could not continue to completely ban the return of Crimean Tatars but instead resorted to creating ghettos in the northern, steppe part of the peninsula. Namely, in Bilohirsk, Dzhankoy, Kirov, Krasnogvardeysk, Krasnoperekopsk, Nizhnohirsk, Pervomaisk, and Soviet districts. The map shows the color-coded districts and towns where Crimean Tatars were forbidden to settle. What were they left with? Remote steppe areas, away from large cities and the resort coast.

What was it like before 1987? In order to better understand the Soviet policy of banning the return of Crimean Tatars and the instruments of this ban, we need to dive deeper into history. Three years after Stalin's death, in 1956, by a decree of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, deported Crimean Tatars were released from special settlements, but with a ban on returning to Crimea, as they were informed when the text of the decree was announced in special comments. Moreover, with rare exceptions, Crimean Tatars were not allowed to enter Crimea even as tourists: they were tracked, forbidden to stay in hotels, and forced to leave the peninsula.

On September 5, 1967, a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR “On Citizens of Tatar Nationality Residing in Crimea” was adopted. The decree canceled previous decisions of state bodies. It would seem that this was the long-awaited permission to return!

However, on the same day, the Supreme Council of the USSR adopted a resolution stating that citizens of “Tatar nationality who previously resided in Crimea” had the right to reside in the USSR in accordance with “the current legislation on employment and passport regime.”

As practice later showed, this resolution actually served as a ban on the return of Crimean Tatars to their homeland. How did it work? While before September 1967, only urban residents had passports in Crimea, now the rural population of the peninsula received passports and registration. Instead, Crimean Tatars who arrived in Crimea were denied the right to live on their native land because they did not have a so-called Crimean registration in their passports. 

It was possible to register formally. But the Soviet government created numerous obstacles for Crimean Tatars to obtain a Crimean registration. First of all, they had to have a reason for registration, namely official employment. But they were not hired without a Crimean registration. It was a vicious circle: no job, no registration, and no job without a Crimean registration. Those who were lucky enough to get a job without a residence permit fell into the next trap. There was also a requirement that Crimean Tatars wishing to register in Crimea had to find housing on their own at the rate of 13 square meters per family member, which, even in the case of a small family, was equal to the area of a rather large estate, according to Soviet realities. After all, if it was a family of four, the house had to be 54 square meters. Not to mention the families in which not one but two or even three generations returned at the same time. 

But all these restrictions became known only later, when the Crimean Tatars began to leave for Crimea. And they set off almost immediately after the publication of the September 5 decree, because they had been dreaming of returning since the first day of their exile. Crimean Tatars left for Crimea in huge families, including old people who dreamed of dying in their native land and children who had never seen Crimea but had adopted the dream of it from their parents.

The deceptive nature of the decree became clear as the resettlement to Crimea began. The reaction of Crimean Tatars to the September 5 decree was faithfully recorded by KGB officers: “This is just a handout to shut us up,” people said.

One of the key features of the return that began in September 1967 was an attempt by Crimean Tatars arriving in Crimea to “reach out” to local authorities in order to exercise their right to live throughout the USSR in accordance with the current legislation. Thus, Simferopol, the administrative center of the Crimean region, became the epicenter of the return for a certain period of time.

The report of the head of the KGB of the Ukrainian SSR states that on September 12, Crimean Tatars from Tashkent came to see the deputy head of the Crimean regional committee. They asked about the implementation of the decree by local authorities, benefits for Crimean Tatars for resettlement, housing, and employment. On September 24, a group of 48 Crimean Tatars visited the regional committee to find out why they were denied registration and construction of houses.

Documents of the time allow us to conclude that events in Crimea that fall were unfolding very rapidly. According to the Crimean regional committee, by October 3, 700 Crimean Tatars had already arrived in Crimea. The document says that they make collective visits to party and Soviet authorities with demands for employment and housing, they organize meetings, campaign among the local population, and set up tent cities. Just imagine: it's 1967, the Brezhnev era of stagnation, the anniversary of the October Revolution is coming up, almost a year before the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the Crimean Tatars are setting up tents in the administrative center of the Crimean region. What impudence! Extremists! 

Thus, on October 15, 1967, according to a report by the head of the KGB, about 200 Crimean Tatars gathered in a park near the regional executive committee. After ten of them were invited to a reception, the rest were asked to disperse because they were “disturbing public order.” Instead, the crowd moved to the building of the regional executive committee, where six people were detained and the rest were dispersed by the police.

Колективні відвідування владних та партійних органів (а фактично акції протесту) відбувалися протягом року. 26 червня 1968 р. група кримських татар завітала на прийом до голови Кримського облвиконкому Трохима Чемодурова, який зачинився в себе в кабінеті та викликав черговий підрозділ міліції. Після того як кримські татари відмовилися звільнити приміщення, до них було застосовано силу: частину людей було заарештовано на 15 діб, проти Мамеді Чобанова було відкрито кримінальну справу за опір міліції, а решту посадили на літак до Душанбе, подалі від Криму. 

15 серпня 1968 року близько сотні кримських татар із дітьми розташувалися біля входу до будівлі облвиконкому. Співробітники КДБ у своєму звіті писали, що деякі з присутніх виголошували вигуки антирадянського змісту.

Thus, non-violent resistance to the authorities became part of the struggle for the right to live in their native land. As we can see from the sources, this struggle involved protest demonstrations and the actual appropriation of urban space. The spacious squares and cozy parks of Simferopol turned into places where Crimean Tatars held demonstrations, discussed further plans, and campaigned among the citizens. But above all, the public space was used as a temporary shelter, where the exiles literally lived with their families, as the local authorities banned Crimean Tatars from staying in hotels in the city. In his memoirs, Enver Ametov noted that when he checked into one of the hotels in Simferopol, the receptionist categorically refused to give him a place because “some colonel” came to them and forbade them to accommodate Crimean Tatars, threatening the woman with dismissal.

For example, this photo shows Rustem Karabash's family in Trenyov Park in the center of Simferopol. The family was forced to live in the park with their seven children, the youngest of whom is less than a year old.

Human rights activist Petro Hryhorenko, who arrived in Crimea in the summer of 1968, later wrote in his memoirs that at that time the train station, airport, and city squares were filled with Crimean Tatars, who “besieged” Soviet and party authorities and the police from morning to night, demanding that they be given a residence permit. Hryhorenko drew attention to the fact that Crimean Tatar families with young children in their arms found themselves forced to sleep in the open air in public gardens: 

“My heart was bleeding when I saw these people. It's impossible to describe it. You had to see a lot of half-naked dirty children sleeping on the concrete floor of the train station and airport. But they were lucky! And what about those sleeping on the bare ground in public gardens? Cold children are crying. How can you warm them? The government is cruel and soulless. In any democratic country, a government that created a situation like this would not last even three days. The people of Simferopol did not lift a finger to help. And how could they? The authorities warned: “Do not help Tatars!”

Seytumer Mustafayev recalled that during the day they took part in the actions that took place on Lenin Square, and at night they slept in the park, covered with jackets. He also notes that his wife used to wash diapers and bathe the children in the Salgyr River.

There were days when the police detained Crimean Tatars during the day so that they “did not get underfoot” and released them at night. For example, on October 1, 1967, all Crimean Tatars who were in Trenyov Square were detained and taken to the police station, where they were held until the evening. It was also common practice for Crimean Tatars to be detained on the streets of Simferopol and forced to write a note stating that they undertook to leave the peninsula within 72 hours.

It should be noted that the authorities reacted sharply to the presence of Crimean Tatars not only in the city center. For example, on May 27, 1968, Crimean Tatars set up tents for the night near the Simferopol reservoir. In the morning, the police and vigilantes showed up and began to demolish the tents and force people onto a bus. Homer Bayev, a participant in those events, recalled that they were detained and forcibly taken out of Crimea.

However, less than a month later, in the central park of Simferopol, Crimean Tatars, who had returned to the peninsula in large numbers, held another rally demanding to be registered. The police asked them in surprise: “Have you really come again?” - "We have come home," the Crimean Tatars replied.

Even children born in exile did everything possible to return to their native land. Hryhorenko recalls how he met a twelve-year-old boy who wrote a letter to the Central Committee of the party asking to register his family:

“It was the cry of a child's soul. He said to me: “They will think in Moscow that my parents asked me to write this letter, but my parents don't even know that I sent this letter. I just described everything I saw and asked those in Moscow whether they were human or not.”

Indeed, against all odds, Crimean Tatars were traveling to Crimea. According to government estimates, about 70,000 exiles arrived on the peninsula in the summer of 1968 alone. 

There are testimonies of participants in those events that after a long wait they were lucky and received permission to register and, accordingly, to find employment. But such cases were rare. 

For example, after five months of waiting, Khairiye Ablayeva and her family managed to register. She recalled that while her husband was looking for a house to buy, she went to the regional executive committee every day. Over time, the family lost hope, but on the last day, after packing, Khairiye suggested that her husband visit the regional executive committee one last time: “I went in, and they said: 'You were allowed to register. That's how we registered in Novozhylivka.”

By August 1968, 111 Crimean Tatars were registered in the Crimean region. That is, in almost a year, a little more than a hundred exiles managed to return to their homeland. Other Crimean Tatars were forced to return to Uzbekistan, move to neighboring regions (Kherson or Krasnodar), or look for opportunities to register and find work in remote villages on the Crimean peninsula. But this is a completely different story.

To be continued 

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